The old Master instructed the unhappy young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it. “How does it taste?” the Master asked. “Awful,” spat the apprentice. 

The Master chuckled and then asked the young man to take another handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake and when the apprentice swirled his handful of salt into the lake, the old man said, “Now drink from the lake.” As the water dripped down the young man’s chin, the Master asked, “How does it taste?” “Good!” remarked the apprentice. “Do you taste the salt?” asked the Master. “No,” said the young man. 

The Master sat beside this troubled young man, took his hands, and said, “The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount we taste the ‘pain’ depends on the container we put it into. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things….. Stop being a glass. Become a lake!”

What I make of this story is a very simple understanding. The lesson may be simple, but the act of putting it in action consciously every day is the tough part.

What the water signifies in this story is our blessings and all the good things in our life. In times of trouble and in the middle of any crisis, we tend to see none or very little positive in our life, and very little blessings. We tend to focus on the salt or the crisis or the problems at hand. 

The wise master asks us to focus on our blessings and every small positive and good thing in our lives. This can’t happen suddenly. It must be a daily practice. How we can do this is by practicing gratitude. Having a place of showing and expressing gratitude on a daily basis is a beautiful thing. The practice becomes stronger with regular practice. One way is to maintain a gratitude journal – one could do an actual handwritten journal or take up an online resource for the same. There are some beautiful apps that you can use on your phone to make it super handy and also have a daily alarm set to assure that you give 5 minutes on that app or journal writing in what you are grateful for.

Once this daily habit forms, then we will always be mindful of our blessings and gratitude will come close to being a second nature to us. Thus this overflow of gratitude will help us ride any crisis wave smoothly or we can at least recall our blessings more easily and readily. 

In this sea of gratitude, we will swim and reach the end of the crisis and pain. Our blessings will help us pull through and provide us the strength that we need. The more gratitude we have the more number of people there will be to assist us in our hour of need. 

What we will also notice is that this act of showing gratitude attracts more beautiful things and people into our life. Goodness attracts more goodness.

So…don’t stop being a glass, become a lake. 

Start that gratitude journal today!